Mad Man
by Horky
Summary: He had wanted to be like Sephiroth…he was…he’d become a hero. But…Sephiroth went mad, and he was destined to be like the hero.


Mad Man

_Post Meteor_

There are times in these past two months that he has glanced over his shoulder and seen things he shouldn't see; people that are dead, with scars and blood, and bits of Mako dripping from their eyes like tears. It isn't the first clue, and it certainly isn't the last, but he learns to live with it. Tifa tells him to smile more, and he's tried, but it's hard when you see the bloodied back of your best friend out of the corner of your eye.

--

He's woken up late this morning, but feels no need to rush it; he's tired, in late last night because of a storm. He's still got mud under his fingernails from peeling off his goggles. Tifa's up too, he can smell coffee in his room. He stumbles into the bathroom, stubbing his toe along the way with a silent curse. He relieves himself, and then splashes water across his face to wake him up. He reaches up to open the medicine cabinet, catching his tired eyes in the mirror for half a second. Sephiroth stares back at him, Masamune raised in the background with delicate precision.

He opens the cabinet unperturbed. He has grown used to this little show.

--

Tifa tells him that Marlene got into a fight at school today. It seems wrong to him, since little girls don't get into fights…little boys do. He of all people should know this. She wants him to say something, do something, give her a little help but God knows he can't help her and he can't help himself so he settles with a thoughtful 'Hmm.' Tifa sighs, disappointment lacing her features and her voice, 'You could at least ask why.'

Marlene smartly replies with a 'Do you need a reason to punch a stupid boy on the nose?'

A flash of Johnny standing over him in the dusty streets of Nibelheim slaps him. He replies with a curt 'No.' and Tifa swallows with guilt.

--

Tifa asks him to talk…she can tell there's something wrong, (not that there hasn't always been something wrong) but something is really eating at him. He doesn't meet her eyes, just grips his hands into fists at his sides, and keeps his lips pressed tightly together when he sees Sephiroth dangling from Tifa's neck, reflected in her necklace. She swallows when he doesn't say anything, just replies with that hollow look in his eyes; it takes all her strength to reach across the bar and pull him into a hug. It startles him because he thought Sephiroth was real for a moment and was about to jump at Tifa's throat.

--

He wakes just before Zack pressed his sword into his chest, bitter about him stealing his life, seeing his girl, and forgetting him. He wakes with the tiny blade he keeps beneath his mattress pressed to his neck. Sephiroth stares at him through the window, and Aeris silhouette is visible through the open door, light coming in his room from the hall. The door opens further, and his breath catches as she moves into the room, soft footsteps to his bed. He stares in disbelief, as her pale hand reaches down and removes the blade from his neck. He had forgotten about that. He blinks up at her as the lamp clicks on, and her eyes are bloody.

He's starring at Tifa, and she's about to cry.

He tells her he's leaving.

--

Barret comes to wish them well on their trip, taking Marlene under one arm, and resting the other on Tifa's shoulder. She refused for him to leave her behind, but more than that, she refused for him to go alone. She tells Barret to take care of the bar, and he almost feels it pointless to leave since Tifa's coming with him. He almost killed himself, what will stop him from killing her?

--

The first night out, he wakes to Jenova whispering to him to kill the girl, and go back for the child. The resemblance to the Cetra is too great to be coincidence. Tifa's sitting by the fire awake, though they both agreed to sleep and not take watch. She's watching him with big eyes, almost scared, but more concerned and sad. She says, 'You talk in your sleep…or at least something does.'

--

He learns today that he's going to die. He feels it in his bones and muscles as his body gives out. They're hiking along through the cliffs of Cosmo Canyon, and he feels his knees break, then his hips shatter, and his back crumbles to dust. His arms are jelly, and his mind is numb, but his eyes tell him he's tumbling down a cliff side, and his ears tell him that Sephiroth is waiting for him on the other side. When he wakes, it's to Tifa's tears and some bruised ribs.

Tifa says she wishes it were her. He doesn't know what she means, but it's enough to hug her through the pain, and the threat of accidentally killing her.

--

He leaves her in the morning, somehow slipping from beneath her warm arms. The early morning is cold, but he doesn't shiver against it. Mako has made his blood warm, and he's tired of being hot. He thinks he'll go to the Northern Continent to cool off. He ignores how Aeris' shadow pulls on his arm, and how Zack grabs to his feet through the dirt to weigh him down. He ignores how Sephiroth laughs in his ear, and how Jenova is seated somewhere on the horizon.

But most of all, he ignores the heat of Tifa's body that still lingers on his skin.

--

He wakes in the snow, finally cold, at the lip of the crater. There's blood in the snow, and ice on his eyelashes, but he feels good, and he feels right. Sephiroth is somewhere in the clouds, and Jenova's in the snow, but Zack is in his mind, and Aeris is in the ribbon he clutches desperately. Jenova's a little ticked off he didn't kill the girl, and go back for the one that resembles the Cetra, but he's never really been one to please Jenova, so it doesn't bother him. He hears another voice in his ear, and a pressure on his shoulders and almost lashes out because he thinks it's Sephiroth again; he had fought him, but he got so caught up in it, he can't remember if it was his own blade or Sephiroth's that stabbed him.

Tifa's holding his shoulders, wailing at him to wake up, and be alright. Her tears freeze on her cheeks, and her fingers burn like fire even though they're stiff and deathly white. She tells him not to die, but he thinks it's pointless since he knew he was going to die since his body crumbled. She presses a hasty kiss to his blue lips and it somehow burns more than her skin, and he feels something inhuman shriek in the back of his mind. Breath freezes in his lungs, and he closes his eyes to blissful darkness.

--

When he wakes it's in a room he doesn't recognize, and a body he doesn't know, but more importantly there's a woman he doesn't know sitting in a chair beside of his bed. She looks up, relief crossing her features and tells him where he is, but it's a place he once again doesn't recognize. She discovers quickly that he has lost his memory, and she swallows.

She says, 'I'm sorry you don't remember anything…" but she says it in such a way he almost doesn't believe her.

Nothing strikes a cord in his memory, not even when she says his name, and her name, and how he's a hero…that's all she'll tell him. But…something sort of lingers.

It's the whiteness of the room, the starched sheets and pale walls. It's the snow he died in, and her eyes are the blood.

**A/N: **I'm bad...instead of finishing Diaries chappie, I wrote this. Another strange one, probably in league with My Decaying Star. Coldplay rocks.


End file.
